The invention relates to an apparatus for breaking the neck of a defeathered headless bird hanging by its legs from a shackle of an overhead conveyor, and more in particular to an apparatus of this kind provided with at least one pair of vertically disposed slide bars, which move along in synchronisation with the overhead conveyor during part of its path and slidably support a slide block, which carries an outwardly extending forked clamping member and a pressure bar, which is movable relative to said clamping member in such manner that it allows the neck of a bird to be caught in the opening of the clamping member in a lowered position of the slide block, but when the slide block reaches it upper position the pressure bar closes the opening of the clamping member, thereby breaking the neck, after which the neck is pushed at least partially out of the skin by the pressure bar as the slide block moves downwards again.
An apparatus of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,035,867. With this known apparatus the pressure bar is an arm, which is pivotably connected with the clamping member and the movements of the arm are controlled by an outlying fixed curve body.
This apparatus has the disadvantage, that the pivoting movement of the pressure bar makes it necessary that the clamping member is relatively wide, which makes it possible that the wings are caught in the clamping member together with the neck and are damaged when the neck is broken. Also the outlying curve body may damage the wings.
Another disadvantage is that the neck tends to slip away to one side or rotate when the clamping member is closed by the pressure arm, similar to the action of a pair of scissors, so that the neck will not always be broken in the right direction, namely in a straight line from the back towards the front of the neck.